What Happens to the Collection When We’re Gone?
Hey guys, Joe A. here with another one for ya’! Here’s a fragrance topic we probably don’t talk about enough, mostly because it feels a little weird, a little morbid and maybe a little too real for a hobby built around smelling good while we’re still above ground. But let’s be honest, some of us have collections that are no longer just “a few bottles on a shelf.” We’ve got full-blown fragrance libraries, emotional time capsules, scent memories, discontinued gems, blind-buy regrets and enough juice to keep a small village (okay, okay a LARGE village...) smelling dangerous for the next decade. So here’s the question: what’s the plan for your fragrance collection after you die? Do your loved ones know what any of it is worth? Would they know the difference between a $25 cheapie and a discontinued unicorn? Are they keeping a few bottles that remind them of you? Selling the valuable ones? Giving them to friends in the hobby? Donating them? Or is Uncle Larry about to inherit your entire Amouage shelf and use Reflection Man as bathroom spray because “it smells clean”? For me, this is one of those topics where the humor helps soften the truth. Our collections are more than bottles. They represent phases of life, memories, moods, trips, milestones, mistakes and moments. Some bottles are just stuff. Others are little glass monuments to who we were, what we loved and how we wanted to be remembered when we walked into a room. What say you, guys? Have you ever thought about what happens to your fragrance collection when you’re gone? Would you want your family to keep certain bottles, sell them, pass them down, or hand them off to someone in the community who would appreciate them? And the anti-question: which bottle in your collection would you absolutely haunt somebody over if they wasted it as room spray?Love to hear from ya’!